[1] This early attempt at educational broadcasting ended by December 1941, with the entrance of the United States into World War II.

In 1951, the university supported the reallocation of channel 11 to Des Moines for an educational television station there.

[7] Meanwhile, Iowa State University's WOI-TV in Ames avoided the 1948 Freeze and began commercial broadcast operations in 1950 and carried some National Educational Television programming.

[8] Des Moines Public Schools applied for the channel 11 allocation and signed on KDPS-TV as the educational station for central Iowa in 1959.

In 1969, the state of Iowa bought KDPS-TV from the Des Moines Public Schools and changed its calls to KDIN-TV, intending it to be the linchpin of a statewide educational television network.

As part of the state's ambition, it rebranded KDIN as the Iowa Educational Broadcasting Network.

Download coordinates as: In 2012, an application was filed for a digital replacement translator to extend coverage of KRIN into Dubuque.

The station's digital channel allocations post-transition are as follows:[15] Starting August 31, 2013, Iowa PBS (as IPTV) had gone off-the-air nightly from midnight to 5 a.m. over-the-air due to budget concerns, reduced from a 24-hour schedule.

The network restored over-the-air 24-hour service on January 15, 2019; late night programming mainly consists of the national PBS schedule.

Its 65,000 member households across Iowa and bordering states contribute nearly 90% of the out-of-pocket costs for acquiring and producing general audience programming.